This is a story from a cousin of a cousin (who may or may not be a cousin of mine) that I saw on Facebook. Do you have to be from Middle Tennessee to appreciate it?
Mister and I portrayed Thomas and Mary Elizabeth Ryman (as in the famous Ryman Auditorium) in a historical cemetery tour over the weekend. Part of his script talked about how Ryman and his dad froze flatboats full of water in the winter, then cut blocks of ice from the boats (and sometimes from the frozen Cumberland River) and stored them in caves & whatnot, usually packed in sawdust, till the summer.
Now, some of you who have been to Monticello have seen Thomas Jefferson’s icehouse, which is a big ol’ stone pit where they stored blocks of ice. So when Mister got to his part about the ice, I said……
“Mr. Ryman, that’s all remarkably fascinating, and I’ma let you finish, but Thomas Jefferson had the best icehouse of all time.”
From Ariedana
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I’m from MIddle TN and I don’t know what to appreciate, the fact that Ryman was a capitalist or that Thomas J beat him to the idea?????